Just say no! Say no to continuing bad eating habits on Monday that you had over a less-than-perfect weekend. Say no to having the diet mentality that “I already blew it this weekend, so I may as well just forget it!” Stop the overeating madness right now—not later! You could have your body back into a fat burning state in two or three days of clean long fasts (18-23 hours). Don’t let the weekend ruin what you know you could do!

Take a look at what happened this weekend. You know that you can adjust your fasting hours and eating hours to accommodate special occasions (not every Saturday and Sunday is a special occasion!). You know how flexible this lifestyle is (for life!). So what went wrong?

See if you had the weekend “Diet Mentality”—perfect on week days and indulgent on weekends. See if what started out as a simple exception or lengthening of your eating window for a special day turned into a weekend eating fest. Did you not have a plan in place to handle the down time or the food that you were going to be around as you cooked breakfast for your family? Examine your weekend—and fix it for next weekend!

The “Diet Mentality” is that we are perfect on our “diets” during the week to compensate for over-indulgence on the weekend. The “Diet Mentality” is that we punish ourselves on Mondays to do penance for our weekend food sins. This can stop with Intermittent Fasting!

While you might want to extend your fasting hours to prepare for a shorter fasting window for a special occasion. While you might want to do sugar-free for a few days because you do better without as much sugar. While you might want a short eating window when you go out to a four course dinner….you no longer need to punish yourself for whatever may have taken place food-wise over the weekend! If you push yourself to do an Extended Fast (EF—36 hours or more) as punishment when you aren’t ready for that lengthy fast, you could set yourself up for fasting failure in general. If you decide to do super low calories in Monday’s eating window, your Tuesday fast will be HARD. Get rid of the punishment mentality—regardless of what your weekend was like.

Another Diet Mentality! Associating weekdays with health food and weekends with junk food is no longer needed with Daily IF! You can have whatever you want, whatever makes you feel good and achieve your health and weight management goals, any time. When we attach certain food types to days of the week, we also risk the “I already ate junk today, so I may as well forget my program” mentality. (Do you see how the “Diet Mentality” is a slippery slope?)

Eat what you want, what you like, what helps you feel good, what leads to your goals—on whatever day you want to. If you want ice cream on Tuesday, eat ice cream on Tuesday. If you have a special occasion and want a longer eating window on Thursday, have a longer eating window on Thursday. If you don’t have anything special on Saturday, have a longer fast! Don’t base your food choices and/or fasting windows on weekdays vs weekends!

Start Monday out strong! Don’t waver. Don’t let the weekend’s successes or failures dictate how well you will fast this week! Briefly look at your calendar and plan your fasting windows and eating windows based on your schedules and social events. Think about how you will move your windows around to accommodate a Friday lunch date that is really important to you. Plan, plan, plan! (We have so little to DO in IF that looking at your calendar and thinking through the week for a few minutes is really not much to ask!)

If you didn’t use your coping techniques, distractions, or self-soothing strategies on the weekend, pull them out and get them ready to go! Use self-talk as soon as you get up on Monday morning: “I have already fasted for twelve hours. I am only six hours away from eighteen hours. I’ve got this. I am 2/3 done. I succeed in fasting because I plan and think and love the results!” Get ready for a great week—without worrying about what happened on the weekend!

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